I have owned a variety of motorcycles over the years, my first bikes were japanese – Kawasakis, Hondas, etc… which were designed to be fast and cheap, and it clearly showed in the design.

But the most drastic differences are in the Euro vs. US bikes. The only Euro bike I have owned was a BMW, and it was an absolute beauty of a bike where form met function. Every detail on the bike served both a mechanic and asthetic purpose – like, “hey – those cylinder heads look pretty trick, but notice how they molded in a guard to prevent them from getting scratched in tight leans?” It’s stuff like that that you don’t see on American bikes.

Italian bikes are similar – the bike is an artform, and it’s carefully constructed to bring out the beauty of the bike. Lately, the trend has been “naked bikes” that highlight the mechanics of the bike, but even these bikes focus on the structure, like some sort of modern moving statue.

But American bikes are in a class all of their own.

Companies like Harley-Davidson, Indian, Victory, etc… develop bikes that are not mechanically revolutionary, they retain a classic styling, and they pretty much have remained unchanged over the past 70 or so years.

There is a certain history and nostalgia attached to them, and they do a really good job with their marketing, which is probably why they are still around (Harley-Davidson makes more money in licensing deals that it makes on selling bikes). It wasn’t really until the past couple of years that they even put money into research and development. This is largely in part due to the fact that during the 70s and 80s, the US lost market share to foreign competition (Indian went out of business, only recently resurfaced and Harley barely squeaked out of the 70s after is was purchased by AMF).

Design still plays an important roll – and a lot of it has to do with what you want – do you care about form and function? Or do you just want power and performance?